How I Spent My Summer Vacation: 2006
This year our summer vacation was in the United States, as
you'll see in a bit. However, I was invited to a conference in
Germany in May. I managed to have my final exams scheduled as
early as possible, so I could finish the grading and make the trip
without having all that work hanging over my head.
Incidentally, image quality of the following pictures was lowered for
faster loading.
As I often do, I first stopped for a few days in the Netherlands, so
that I could visit family (the inlaws, in this case) and also to get
over jet lag. It turns out that the day after I arrived they
were having a street fair in the village in Brabant where my inlaws
live.
This man is dressed as a knife-sharpener from days gone by:
I also like to borrow a bicycle and head over to Oisterwijk, another
nice village nearby. I cycled on a bike path through some nice
countryside:
I spent some time in Oisterwijk and then cycled to a place called the
Boshuis (house in the forest) for a great Belgian beer.
My father-in-law is a former game warden who is always out and
about looking for wild animals. A few weeks before my arrival, he
and a friend found an injured hawk. They managed to find out that
it was not, in fact, wild, but had been trained and was used in bird
shows by an someone who lives in their village in the Netherlands.
As thanks for returning their bird, he invited all of us over for
coffee and showed us some of the birds:
Did you know there were pink pelicans? I didn't. This one
was the star of an Italian beer commercial. Apparently, all of
these birds were born in captivity.
Germany
The conference that I was invited to attend took place in
Dusseldorf. Before it got started, a few of us (including Maximo
Langer, Geoff Nunberg, and Larry Solan) sat on the banks of the Rhine
for a beer.
The conference took place in a castle owned by the university.
After this conference was over, Hannes Kniffka, professor of Forensic
Linguistics at the university in Bonn, invited a few of us over to give
some lectures in language and law for his students. This is a
photo of me speaking in the Festsaal of the university:
I also gave talks sponsored by the Deutsch-Amerikanische
Juristenvereinigung (German-American Lawyer's Association) at the
universities of Frankfurt and Bochum.
After this whirlwind tour of the Rhine area of Germany, I got on a fast
German train--they really are fast!--and went back to the Netherlands.
Back in the Netherlands
It was basically rain, rain,
rain in the Netherlands. Actually, it was raining during the
entire two weeks that I was in Europe, no matter where I went.
This is a photo of some tourists having a good time near the
Leidseplein in Amsterdam. How do I know they're tourists? Who
else would ride on nerdy yellow bicycles in Amsterdam, wearing
color-coordinated rain gear???
Even in the rain, however, Amsterdam is a lovely city.
I also went to a cafe that I used to hang out at in my student days
(the Engelbewaarder on the Kloveniersburgwal). It hasn't changed
a bit. They should
make it a museum.
On the way back home, I spent a day in London between planes. It
was the same story here---rain, rain, rain.
Northern California
The real summer vacation was a trip to Northern California for a couple
of weeks. The first night we camped in the redwoods near Santa
Cruz:
Then we crossed the Golden Gate:
and eventually ended up in Mendocino, where a friend lives:
After a couple of days in Mendocino we drove north to Eureka:
I could say that this is the hotel where we stayed, but it would be a
lie. It's some kind of club that was originally a house built by
a local timber baron. I assume he got a discount on the wood,
because he used a lot of it.
We
also took a river rafting trip on
the Trinity River:
Our rafting guide, Ramon:
We then veered to the East, in the direction of Mt Lassen Volcanic
National Park. Even though it was late in June, the road that
crosses from one side of the park to the other was still snowed
in, so no cars were allowed. But part of it had been cleared, and
we were free to hike along it:
Here I am trying to figure out how I can get to drive this cool-looking
snow plow.
In case you're wondering why it's called a "volcanic" park, the reason
is that there is a lot of thermal activity in this area:
Not too far from this area is Lake Tahoe, where we spent a couple of
days admiring the scenery and celebrating my birthday. The water
in the lake is still very clear, but because of all the development in
this area it's
not as clear as it used to be:
The Eastern Sierras
From Lake Tahoe, we drove through the Toyabe National Forest and into
the Owens Valley:
One of the more interesting natural features here is Mono Lake.
Because of all the water that is diverted south by the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power, the water level in Mono Lake has dropped
substantially, exposing all these tufa towers that used to be under the
water. The people in this area aren't too happy about it,
claiming that L.A. "stole" the water:
At the tiny town of Lee Vining, you can proceed in the direction of
Yosemite by means of Tioga Pass. The pass had recently opened
up. There are some gorgeous lakes around here:
Very close to here we found a great campsite where we spent a couple of
nights:
The next day we headed down to Yosemite Valley, where we had not been
in quite a while. Early in the summer is a nice time to be there,
because the waterfalls are at their peak. What you don't see in
the photo is the swarms of mosquitos who flourish in all that water:
Of course, photographs can give a very misleading impression. It
was a weekend in the summer, and we weren't the only people enjoying
the views!
Things were much quieter in the high country, in part because the
ground was still wet and the major campgrounds in that part of the park
were still closed (in late June!). Below are a couple of shots I
took of Tuolumne Meadows:
Manzanar Relocation Camp
Also in the Owens Valley is the Manzanar Relocation Camp, where
Japanese Americans were sent during the second world war because of
fears that some of them were spies or might be tempted to assist the
Japanese war effort against the U.S. There is a famous U.S.
Supreme Court case that upheld the relocation practice (Korematsu v.
United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)).
Most of the buildings are gone, but you can still see the foundations
of the post office, store, etc. The former gymnasium has been
turned into a museum. There is also a small cemetery with a
memorial marker that was added at some later date:
Here is a parting shot of the Owens Valley, with the Alabama Hills in
the foreground and Mt Whitney behind them:
The end.